Can’t win Race if You’re not There: Jeffery Archer on UK Elections

The talks about David Cameron’s campaign blunders and how the Conservative party’s election strategy is unstuck.

As the United Kingdom gears up for elections on May 7, the competition between contesting parties has intensified. For millionaire novelist and former Conservative party Deputy Chairman, Jeffrey Archer, this election will not be as exhausting as the ones in 80s and the 90s.

And though, he may be celebrating his 75th birthday at his home in Mallorca, Spain with his forever-fragrant wife, Dame Mary, and their two sons, Lord Archer has been closely following the run-up to the May 7 polls with his experienced eyes.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the former Tory MP talks about Conservative party candidate and Prime Minister David Cameron’s campaign blunders, where the party’s election strategy is coming unstuck – and how to fix it.

David Cameron Blunders

Archer slammed Cameron for not attending the recent BBC debate which left the platform open for the other five opposition leaders. He told The Telegraph that missing out now and trying to join the race in the final leg may be too late.

You can’t win the race if you’re not there. Remember when the New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, ran for US president in 2008? He sat out of the early primaries. By the time he was ready to join in, the game was over.
– Jeffrey Archer

He also highlighted that the party leaders have made an awful mistake in attacking the audience, it’s too Left-wing. Never attack your audience, he said.

If David Cameron wants my advice, there is one thing I’d tell him. I may be regarded as fuddy-duddy and out-of-it, but my strong instinct is that the British public don’t like personal attacks.
– Jeffrey Archer

Scottish Resistance

We will be lucky to get one seat in Scotland because we made a disastrous mistake 25 years ago and introduced the poll tax there first.
– Jeffrey Archer

The novelist recalls that he was at Chequers Court in England when former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) was making that decision to introduce the poll tax in Scotland first.

She genuinely – and I mean genuinely – believed that she was doing Scotland a favour, that the measure would be very popular there. But it backfired, and that still resonates with Scottish voters.

And while Scotland may be a lost cause for Conservatives, the Scottish National Party has clearly got under Lord Archer’s skin.

I shouldn’t say this, but I will: I hate the way the Scottish Nationalists are behaving. They are bullies. They demonise the English. They hate the English. It is a terrible thing for us all.